Easter Day; the children are sent to church, I am once again busy with the laundry. At breakfast, while reflecting that we have almost been freed from a whole wicked family of seven people without our intervention, I say to R. that we definitely have a star that makes up for our foolishness, mends what we tear in the fabric of life, and we call it the “patch star”, for “lucky star” and “fixed star”—and laugh a great deal about it.
R. had another wildly strange dream today! He needed 4000 thalers and searched for them among Jews, one of whom suddenly sang the aria from “La Dame Blanche” in the middle of his business, and R. could not help but remark: “He actually has a good tenor voice!”
Kapellmeister Levi sends a telegram reporting an incoming letter, which means that they will not be performing “Tristan” in Munich for R., probably out of fear of his presence.
Archduke Viktor [1] has it announced that he will take a box seat instead of a patronage note, to which R. replies that one does not enter his theater for money! In the evening, a few acquaintances and the cellist Fischer [2] from Munich visit, and he plays Beethoven sonatas for us. – R. is in a cheerful mood.
[1] Ludwig Viktor (born 1842), from a secondary Habsburg hereditary line.
[2] Franz F. (1849-1918), worked in the Nibelungen Office, became conductor of the Munich Court Opera in 1879, and co-conductor for “Parsifal” in 1882.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.